Aid reaches Haiti before Hurricane Ike arrives

Published
8:00 pm EDT, Thursday, September 4, 2008

Associated Press

GONAIVES, Haiti -- The first shipload of aid sailed Friday into a crumbling port on the outskirts of this flooded city where tens of thousands have gone for days with little food or water in the wake of Tropical Storm Hanna.

Receding flood waters revealed more corpses in the stinking muck, bringing fears the death toll of 137 will rise even higher. But on Friday, the focus was not on counting bodies, but on caring for survivors.

The rusty container ship Trois Rivieres, chartered by the U.N. World Food Program, arrived belching white smoke. Guarded by Argentine peacekeepers brandishing assault rifles, it docked at a remote private port away from the city, apparently because of fears the sight of so much food could trigger a riot.

The U.N. planned to distribute the high-energy biscuits and water to emergency shelters where 40,000 people were marooned and increasingly desperate.

More than 10,000 people have left Gonaives on foot, swimming and wading through floodwaters and heading for the next town about 45 miles to the south, said Daniel Rouzier, Haiti chairman of Food for the Poor.

"The exodus out of Gonaives is massive," he said.

With the skies finally clear Friday, aid also began to trickle in by air. At least eight U.N. helicopters carrying personnel and food landed at the peacekeepers' base at the foot of a deforested mountain. A pair of U.S. Coast Guard helicopters brought in food donated by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

But the respite was expected to be brief. Hurricane Ike, a dangerous Category 3 storm, was forecast to pass just north of Haiti on Sunday. Even if Haiti avoids a direct hit, Ike is almost certain to bring rain to the fertile Artibonite Valley, whose rivers funnel into Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city, and the surrounding flood plain.

"It's such a moist environment, so rain is almost a no-brainer. Now, how much rain is tough to say," meteorologist John Cangialosi said at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Max Cocsi, who directs Belgium's mission in Haiti of Doctors Without Borders, noted it would take little rain to compound the disaster because the soil is already saturated and rivers are overflowing from three tropical storms in less than three weeks. The two earlier storms -- Fay and Gustav -- killed at least 96 other Haitians.

"We don't need a hurricane -- a storm would be enough," he said.

Rescue convoys have been blocked for days by floodwaters, collapsed bridges and washed-out roads. A U.S. plane from Miami delivered enough relief supplies for 20,000 people to the capital Thursday, much of which was brought to Gonaives by a U.S. Coast Guard cutter and by air.

The tropical storms have compounded Haiti's misery. The Western Hemisphere's poorest country was already suffering from rising prices and government disorder following April food riots that unseated the prime minister.